Turkish Cargo Ship Attacked Off Libyan Coast

CAIRO — A Turkish cargo ship off the coast of Tobruk, Libya, was attacked by warplanes and artillery, killing a Turkish officer and injuring members of the crew, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The attack was the latest episode of violence among armed factions within Libya spiraling out to harm foreigners or their interests.

In January, another foreign ship — a Greek-owned oil tanker — was bombed in the same area by forces allied with the internationally recognized government, based in Tobruk and Bayda.

Meanwhile, Libyan extremists have also recently slaughtered groups of Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians, gunned down foreigners in a luxury hotel in Tripoli, and claimed responsibility for several attacks on foreign embassies.

The Turkish government said in a statement on Monday that the ship was attacked while delivering a cargo of plasterboard to Tobruk from Spain. But a spokesman for the military forces allied with the Tobruk and Bayda government said on Monday that the Turkish vessel was bound for Darnah, a stronghold of Islamist forces.

“We have warned before about approaching Darnah port,” the spokesman, Mohamed Hejazi, told Reuters. The government said in January that the Greek tanker it bombed had also headed for Darnah, about 90 miles west of Tobruk. At least two crew members were killed.

The Turkish ship may also have been a target because the Tobruk-Bayda government accuses Ankara of fueling a proxy war playing out across Libya after the overthrow of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The faction that controls the Tobruk and Bayda government is allied with the military leader Khalifa Hifter and has the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, in what they characterize as a fight against Islamist extremists.

Its main rival, the faction based in Misurata and Tripoli, includes both moderate and extremist Islamists and has the backing of Qatar and Turkey in what they characterize as a fight against a return to autocracy. Western diplomats have said, though, that unlike the other three regional players, Turkey does not appear to be providing any military aid to its Libyan allies.

A statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Monday stopped short of blaming any specific side in Libya for the attack on the cargo ship. But all the artillery in the area where the attack occurred is controlled by the faction that dominates the Tobruk and Bayda government, and that group also controls Libya’s only operational air forces.

The Turkish statement said that the cargo ship, the Tuna-1, was registered in the Cook Islands and operated by a Turkish shipping line. The Tuna-1 came under artillery fire in international waters 13 miles from Tobruk, the statement said, adding that “while the ship was trying to leave the area of artillery attack, it was the target of two additional subsequent air attacks.”

“We strongly protested this heinous attack before the relevant Libyan authorities,” the Turkish statement added, calling for “the necessary legal procedures against the authors of this attack.”